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Sunday, June 19, 2011

weekly poem...

Intelligence﻿

Wiretaps and tapes, concealedbugs and mikes,intercepted lettersfull of passionate declarations, contradictoryintelligence—how attached he’d grownto the subject’s documents, revising and rearrangingthe influx of intelligencewith a sentiment, he acknowledged, almostlike love: he feltthe cool gray eyes of his superiorstrained on him, rebuking himfor swerving, for lettinghimself go—such tender obsessionoccasioned by the file!Not quite the professional stylehe or the Agency expected…

But such official loyaltiesseemed mere protocol to this!—what was wrong with him,he wondered, that he construedthe documents to make the subjectseem a hero,a bastard whose sole patrimonywas a pair of shoes and a rusted swordleft by an unknown father beneath a stone?

And yet his exploits in the tabloids,the headlines screaming,

SCOURGE OF MONSTERS STRIKES AGAIN!HERO FOUNDS REPUBLIC

were these heroicdifferent in kind from the rumors,unverified,of a rape, a murder?

—But to have met undisguised the devouring monster!To have escaped the twisting tunnels of the maze…

On balance, for such a life,the hero’s reputation wasn’t bad:think of the opportunities for evila man of such qualities must have had!How well he knew him—an essential innocencethat followed impulse, blindto protocol, not noticeably more kindthan he was cruel.But to stamp Case Closed and ceasegathering intelligence,to give the hero up, almost, he admitted,like a lover…:such limits the herounknowingly transgressed!And the Agency, cold-blooded wherelimits were concerned (“mere protocol”?—more like a second backbone!), committedto keeping order, could not affordsuch sentiments—the Chief of Securityfelt an awful pang: that the work of intelligenceshould lead to this…

He leaned back in his chair and sighed:a forged genealogy certifyingthat the hero’s father was a king; a mutualassistance pactto aid in taking back the usurped crown:he could see them now, the windblowing lightly, the two of them sweatingas they climbed the cliff, discussingthe terms, exchanging information,intelligence—how would his own face lookstaring down across the seaas he gestured earnestly towardsome island, saying,“According to our sources,the tax revenues…”And then, edgingthe hero closer to the cliff, pointingout the harbor, he’d push.